


A story a day keeps insanity away

by WillowWorksWithWords71



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:27:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowWorksWithWords71/pseuds/WillowWorksWithWords71
Summary: A collection of responses to the Febuwhump challenge that I found on tumblr and whatever else strikes my fancy! What to expect: lots of hurt, angst, and always always comfort/fluff at some point to resolve the story! I will be editing and moving things around as I go, but I'll always note when I change something I've already published. I'm doing thing because I'm in my house for at least the next ten days, quite possibly more, and I needed something to do! I really hope that something amongst all this will be enjoyable for someone!
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 8





	1. An old familiar tune

**Author's Note:**

> So this first chapter is a snippet of a larger idea. I just wanted to get something out there. Not edited or beta read, all mistakes are my own. I don't own any of it, I just enjoy it very much. I most likely will change things, and when I do I'll add what I changed to the notes! Any comments/kudos/questions are very welcome! Enjoy!!
> 
> ((Yes I do know I never finished my other whump prompts. Life got in the way... what can I say! Whoops!!))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of 1/9/21: I edited/rewrote some bits of this chap to make it flow better and fit better into what I have written in chap 2 and have in mind for the following chaps. Enjoy!

Aziraphale was old. He kept his face and corporation as innocuously middle-aged as he could, with his pudgy belly and reading glasses and eternally polite demeanor-- well, that first one was probably more due to the food. But the fact was that he had been through some of the best and some of worst of what humanity had to offer. He’d seen and fought and felt and experienced thousands upon thousands of lifetimes’ worth of the green earth God had made, and he loved it. He knew that in his very bones, in his True Form, in his wings and down to his toes and always.

Heaven, on the contrary, had always been difficult to love, no matter how long he existed on Earth or Heaven. 

(That’s not to say that God was hard to love. Oh no, quite the opposite. Aziraphale had a faith that Crowley both admired and despised, it was so absolute.) The archangels, Gabriel, the bureaucracy of it all and the apathy, they were a splinter in his palm. A tack in the sole of his foot. A blister on his ankle. You would think that they weren’t that bad, in the beginning. And he didn’t. Until they kept coming back, century after century, and those little incessant pokes from Heaven’s splinters started to get infected. 

The archangels had given him this gift, though, this time to truly see himself as he was, all his shortcomings and sinful bits. It had started not long after the Garden, in short bursts then, and had grown with time. This was the longest they had ever allowed it to go on. As much as they pained him, as much as they twisted his life and his earthly joys and the love he had fought so hard for with Crowley, there were bits of him, sometimes slivers and sometimes swathes, of his mind which believed Heaven was still his family. 

That’s what ended up causing the most damage, in the end. That he couldn’t let them go. 

These were thoughts that Aziraphale knew were only between himself, Crowley, and the Almighty. Normally. 

He knew that they would let him out. They had to, eventually. It wouldn’t be Holy to let someone suffer forever, would it? 

(There was a certain demon who never would have let him live that statement down, had he been there to hear it.) 

But now his mind wouldn’t stop. His brain was flooded with the pain of his hatred and he in turn hated that he felt it. The cycle relentlessly barraging his heart, he was losing the battle to keep his spirits above the water. 

Though, Aziraphale had to admit, stopping the Apocalypse with a sworn enemy and going against the Divine Plan was a great deal more severe than overdoing it on the miracles. So he couldn’t argue that a punishment was warranted. 

But as the cycle repeated and repeated and kept on and on and on, Aziraphale felt a slip of worry creep in. What if they forgot him? What if they already had? What if, as his own Hell, they were leaving him there? They didn’t think they could kill him. If they had figured out the swap, he’d have been dead days ago. So, this was their next best move, and they knew it. 

He had stopped being able to keep track of time after he had read all of the books he had memorized, four times each. After that even the floor under his feet began to fade. Sometimes he couldn’t even feel his heart beat. He thought, sometimes, he genuinely _forgot _that he needed to make it beat.__

__The thrumming of thoughts in his head was literal. He had found that out the first time Heaven had stuck him in his own mind. It was a rather impressively disorientating move on Heaven’s part. While they made sure his time locked away was agonizing—er, ‘as much of a teaching discipline’, he reminded himself—as it could be, they tweaked his wires internally. They only had that control while they had his mind, but they never let the opportunity go to waste. It could be years before Aziraphale was back to normal. The effects lasted long after they let his mind go, but when it was coupled with their control, it was the worst pain Aziraphale had ever had to experience. Last time it had taken a decade before he could process the world as he normally could. He had been forever grateful for Crowley, during that time._ _

__He wondered where Crowley was, then. He wasn’t sure if he’d see him again, with how quickly things were falling apart in his own head, but he wished desperately that he could._ _

__While he waited, for death or for his one true constant, he let himself slip just a little bit more, one step more down into the darkness._ _


	2. The beginning of the long road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley's pov when he finds Aziraphale. Continuation of Ch.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking I'll be switching back and forth with Aziraphale and Crowley's povs each ch. Each chap will be connected (and if it isn't then I'll note that at the start).  
> Warning: mild language  
> Enjoy!

The bookshop stood dark and stiff on the corner, hiding in plain sight. A force radiated from it, pushing back and outwards. As Aziraphale was, the bookshop was never needlessly cruel. The force simply guided passerby firmly away. But Crowley knew the bookshop’s old tricks almost as well as he knew the Bentley’s, and he knew it recognized him as the only safe being in the universe in that moment.

Slamming the door of the Bentley, Crowley leaned back against it for a moment as he reached out into the shop, probing and feeling for Aziraphale, face passive and heart screwed up in agonizing worry. Nothing came, but then again, Crowley had been expecting that. Aziraphale’s silence had sunk into London over the last several weeks, and since the first day, when Crowley had fallen down the stairs to his apartment with the overwhelming and absolute absence of Aziraphale’s presence, only the protective force of the bookshop, maternal and resolute, interrupted the demonic and human forces at work in London. 

When he pushed on the bookshop doors, just as midnight rang out (marking the passing of the fortieth day of Aziraphale’s seclusion) the doors swung out wide. Crowley was quite literally pulled in as soon as he neared the threshold. With a dull snap of the old wood, the doors were once again locked and sealed against London. Crowley was already in the back room by the time the locks and wards had reset themselves. His yellow eyes, blown out and sharp, raked the room, heart stuttering in his chest louder than it had since he’d saved Aziraphale in France. Oh, France. He really did love the French. Different breed, they were. All too human. But he couldn’t reminisce now, not when Aziraphale’s aura pulsed, finicky and scared. 

An opened book, gently laid out with the stitching half finished, sat in front of the chair. Next to the chair, backed against a pile of books, was Aziraphale. His blue eyes bore into Crowley’s, and as Crowley stared into those wide eyes he knew that they were in deep shit. 

Crowley stared up at the ceiling. He tried, just for a single weak, selfish moment, to close out against the reality of the situation. To close out Aziraphale, stock still, cheeks gaunt and vest sagging against him as it never had before, thick, gentle fingers grasping white-knuckled onto the tiny metal paper trimmers that were meant for book binding. He wondered how long Aziraphale had been sitting there, ready for someone to come in and take him, hurt him. 

Forcing himself to take a deep breath, for Aziraphale, Crowley looked back down. Aziraphale was still staring at him, unblinking. Crowley crouched down, slowly slowly, until he was eye to eye with Aziraphale. 

“Angel, I’m home,” Crowley said. He was soft and soothing, as he had only ever been with Aziraphale (and the occasional child). He said nothing else, letting his statement hang between them, right hand outreached ever so slightly, a quiet invitation he knew Aziraphale wasn’t quite ready to take. 

This had happened before, in sporadic times throughout their shared history, and Crowley didn’t know about every time. There had been countless other times, where Aziraphale must have been just as terrified, that he hadn’t been around. The guilt of those times scraped harshly at his mind, but he clung to the times that he had been able to help. Hatred was too meek a word to accurately describe how he felt towards the fact that this had happened to Aziraphale at all; the fact that he had gone through it so many times, and so many times alone, nearly left Crowley blind with rage. But it did give him one gift. He knew that he could help Aziraphale through it. He knew that Aziraphale could and would, eventually, recover. 

He clung to that hope like a dying man. 

In the past, Heaven had never taken Aziraphale for so long. The longest it had lasted was seven days, back in the 1990’s, and that had nearly broken them both. But it had been forty days this time, forty days where Aziraphale had been trapped in his own mind, alone and tortured. They had only skimmed the details together, before, when both were alarmingly sober and had allowed themselves the intimacy of truth that they had had to bypass for so long to stay safe. But what Crowley knew was that everything that made Aziraphale who he was, everything that made him God’s best angel, was wrenched from him, suffocated on all sides by his deepest fears and every single thing that he had been told made him less than. And Heaven, the archangels in their self-imposed glory and holiness, set Aziraphale over that shitstorm of a fire and let him roast until they deemed him done. 

While his feelings towards God were complicated, his feelings towards the archangels were set in stone the moment he had found out that Aziraphale believed he deserved the punishment. 

Aziraphale had believed them when they told him it was from a place of love that they did it. He believed them for so long. He had just been close to allowing himself to let go of that belief, after the almost end of the world, to see what else, what real truth lay beyond that all-encompassing lie, when the last forty days had begun. 

Keeping his eyes on Aziraphale, Crowley reached out, ignoring the fear in Aziraphale’s eyes, and set his hand on Aziraphale’s ankle. 

Crowley barely brushed his hand over the bare strip of Aziraphale’s ankle, where the sock had scrunched down and left exposed, goosepimpled skin, but Aziraphale’s breathe caught anyways, clenched in his throat like a vice, eyes bugging out so far Crowley actually prayed that they wouldn’t pop out. 

They could not deal with physical injury on top of everything else. 

Crowley knew what he had to do, and he tried not to hate himself too much for it. _It will help Aziraphale, it will help Aziraphale, it will help Aziraphale._

__For one moment Crowley was very, very still, and the next he had grabbed Aziraphale up into his arms and held him there with every demonic muscle in his form, corporeal and true. Aziraphale sucked in a breath and jerked back, trying to escape but not making a sound. Crowley thought that maybe he had avoided the worst this time._ _

__And then Aziraphale began to scream._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos, comments, and constructive criticism much appreciated!


	3. Fogbrain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale's pov of the last chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short, and basically the last scene from Aziraphale's pov, but I wanted to get something out and try to stick with the alternating povs. Enjoy!

Blur

Crowley 

Danger…no. Crowley 

Blur 

The smoothness of the wooden handle of the scissors was reassuring in his palm, and he kept half his senses on that, the other half on Crowley. If that didn’t change then he was fine. If it did change, he’d know that Heaven was still in his head. 

That’s how it had gone, before. At least, he thought that’s what had happened. 

Blur 

Smooth 

Blur 

Crowley’s voice, tapping against the fogginess, pressing in. 

Blursmoothblurwoodblur 

Sharp warmth, against his ankle, and he became aware of his sagging sock. Aziraphale knew that the keening noise, that scared animal noise, was from him. He tried not to focus on that too much. The hand, Crowley’s hand, was gone in an instant. 

Blurblurblur 

_Crowley is safe, Crowley is real _he told himself. They had never brought Crowley into the mind torture before. Why would they start now? Like Crowley said about Hell, Heaven lacked the imagination for that sort of next-level pain.__

__For a few moments, infinity lasting but a few seconds, the blur of the fogginess rested in the air and Crowley stayed away._ _

__As the _smoothgoodsafe _wooden handle fell from his hand and a new sensation enveloped him, Aziraphale was lost, unmoored in the unstable wrongness that was this sensation, this old, familiar sensation. But it was a _before _sensation. Feeling it in the _now _surely meant danger._______ _

___He let himself spin out into the void and forget, leaving Crowley behind._ _ _

___He did hope Crowley wouldn’t be too cross with him._ _ _

____I will come back, my dear boy. In time I will be able to come back to you. Wait just a bit longer for me. _____ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! Any kudos, comments, or constructive criticism is always welcomed!
> 
> -Willow <3


	4. No rest for the wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set three months after Crowley finds Aziraphale in the bookshop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people! So this chap jumps ahead a bit, three months into the storyline. Crowley's pov. I will be going back to that first part of the timeline and flesh out what happens.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chap!
> 
> -Willow <3

The moonlight filtering in from the window, through the wispy curtains that Aziraphale had insisted they put up, cast a dappled shadow across the bed. It was nearly 3am, and Crowley was running on his seventh night without sleep. Aziraphale was on the bed, curled on his side facing Crowley, back to the window and cradled by the gentle moonlight. If Crowley had been human, he would not have been able to make out Aziraphale’s face, even with the backlight, but his snake eyes cut through the dimness and watched carefully.

Aziraphale breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. Even and full, not yet broken by the nightmares. A thick beige blanket, knitted for them by Crowley’s downstairs neighbor, Tatya, (who never minded her own business, being an old woman with a mischievous streak who apparently had nothing better to do than interfere with Crowley’s love life) was wrapped around Aziraphale, covering his blue and white striped nightgown. His nightcap had fallen down his forehead, resting on his eyebrows. The sight of Aziraphale’s restful sleep made Crowley feel like smiling. 

But he couldn’t quite manage it. 

It had been seven nights since Crowley had last slept, but the last time he had gotten more than four consecutive hours had been the night before he had found Aziraphale in the shop. Before that, actually, because he hadn’t been able to sleep properly then either. His body ached. His eyes ached. He wanted to rest, wanted so badly to sleep next to Aziraphale, to lie next to him and let sleep take him far, far away. But he knew it would cause more harm than good. If he fell asleep there would be no one to protect Aziraphale from the nightmares. No one to reassure him that he wasn’t back in his own mind, wasn’t back under Heaven’s control. 

So, he stayed awake. The days piled high and the nights begged him to give in, but he resisted mightily. 

He had moved Aziraphale into his own flat in Mayfair after the fourth failed night at the bookshop. For now, too many ghosts lived there, for both of them. Crowley could still feel the lick of heat, could still see the flames devouring Aziraphale’s beloved books, still feel his breath leave him as the anxiety of losing his beloved threatened to overtake him. 

Leaning against the wall completely, Crowley shifted to be more comfortable. The plush carpet didn’t offer much comfort, though, after hours of sitting one’s bottom on it, unmoving. After another hour passed without Aziraphale stirring, Crowley let himself let go of a breath. He would still sit sentinel, but he could relax knowing that the chances of Aziraphale having a nightmare now were slim. He tended to have them within the first five hours of sleep. He typically slept for nine hours before he woke. 

Aziraphale and Crowley’s favorite human habits had switched, since those forty days. Aziraphale slept through the night and always took a nap in the afternoon, and Crowley had begun to eat, if only to encourage Aziraphale to have something himself. The weight Aziraphale had lost during those forty days had not been gained back. Crowley’s own lean body was growing pudgier, though it knew better than to let the weight affect its performance. 

As Crowley sat and watched his beloved sleep, he worried. As he watched him nibble at toast or biscuits, he worried. As Aziraphale’s hands sometimes still shook as they held a book, he worried. 

So, he did all he could, and he waited for Aziraphale to awake so they could try a new day. It was all he could do. It blurred monotonous and draining in his memory, but he’d repeat the cycle seven zillion times if it meant the seven zillionth and first time was when Aziraphale would start to get better. He shifted to bring his knees up, crossing his arms atop them and his head against them, and he watched over Aziraphale until the blue eyes greeted him once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! As always, kudos, comments, and constructive criticism always welcome. Thank you to all who are reading all everyone who has already left kudos!!
> 
> -W.

**Author's Note:**

> More to come tomorrow!


End file.
